


All I Want Is a Second Chance

by VagrantWriter



Series: Second Chances [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-13 20:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3395369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VagrantWriter/pseuds/VagrantWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robb and Theon settle into their respective marriages while the War for the North continues. But then word arrives from the Wall: The <i> true </i> War for the North has only just begun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“You said you were going to start taking responsibility for your actions.”

“I didn’t mean _marry_ the girl. I was thinking more along the lines of giving her money and sending her on her way.” Theon sighed as he stepped out of his breeches and let them fall to the ground. “I don’t even know her name.”

From the bed, Robb raised one eyebrow. “You don’t know your son’s mother’s name?”

“He’s not my son.”

“I’ve seen the boy’s eyes. I’d say there’s a fair chance he is your son.”

Theon scowled and continued undressing, though he was tempted to put on a good show then simply fuck off to his own room to leave Robb all hot and bothered.

“I know you think it’s beneath you,” Robb continued in a way that suggested he agreed, “but think of it this way: You were there when I got news that my father…what the Lannisters had done to my father.”

Theon nodded. Robb had often cried as a little boy, but as a man he’d wailed even louder than Catelyn Stark. “You hardly spoke at all for nearly three days.” _Even to me. You wanted to be alone, or with your mother. You all acted like it was something I couldn’t understand._

“And _I_ was there when _you_ received news that _your_ father had…died. You barely reacted at all.”

“That’s no comparison,” Theon scoffed. “I hardly _knew_ the man. And what I did know of him, he was a wrinkled-up old cunt.”

“Do you want that boy to grow up thinking of _you_ as a wrinkled-up cunt?”

Theon slipped his smallclothes over his waist and enjoyed the way Robb stopped talking. He was used to admiring looks, had reveled in them ever since he’d become aware that he was handsome, but he especially loved the way Robb complimented him with his eyes. A year ago, he never would have tumbled with a man this way or seriously considered marrying some lowborn captain’s daughter. Robb had a way of changing him that was almost scary.

“Having a child around might be good for my mother,” he conceded, joining Robb on the bed. _I wonder how she’ll react to a boy that looks so much like me_. He wouldn’t admit it, but the child _did_ bear a striking resemblance. “I’ll think about it.”

“Well…” Robb wrapped his arms around Theon’s neck and pulled him closer. The redhead was easily the warmest thing on this barren rock of an island. “I did have a list of potential _lady_ wives for you to help strengthen our alliances. Wylla Manderly, Alysane Mormont, Alys Karstark…”

“Gods,” Theon cried. “I’d rather marry _Arya_. I said I’ll think about it. The captain’s daughter whose name I don’t even know.” He pushed flush against Robb, their naked bodies melding like they were made for each other. “Fine,” he relented. “I’ll raise my bastard while you’re raising Asha’s. Proud House Greyjoy. We’ll be the next Codds or Humbles.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“They’re all sons of whores. Blood as low as dirt. They were the ones my uncle left at Moat Cailin.”

“They seemed reasonable men.” Robb gripped Theon’s waist and expertly flipped them, Theon on top. “I expect you to learn your new wife’s name before the ceremony. But for now…someone once told me a man should not be alone on his wedding night.” He ground his hips upwards, and Theon groaned. Robb was getting better at this. “Treat me as your lady wife tonight.”

He was also getting better at not blushing, all’s the pity.

“Are you sure? It will hurt.”

“You won’t hurt me.” Robb brushed his hand over Theon’s cheek. “I trust you, Theon. With my body, with my life. Now…” He bucked up again. “Fuck me.”

Theon obliged.


	2. Chapter 2

Theon didn’t think he’d ever say it, but he wished there weren’t so many women around. There was Asha, newly crowned Queen of the Iron Islands and newly made wife of Robb Stark. There was Catelyn Stark, who harbored a natural hatred of the Ironborn by virtue of being a Tully and who spent much of her time on Pyke tending to her daughter. There was Sansa Stark and Jeyne Poole, never one without the other. They shared a room, and once-demure Sansa had taken on the role of protector to her childhood friend. There was Alannys Greyjoy, who sat in a chair facing out towards the sea at all times of the day. She didn’t always recognize her son when he came to see her. Then there was Aalis Greyjoy (nee Caen), his new wife, always clinging to him and hanging on his shoulder. He blamed Robb for that last bit.

As for men, there was only Little Theon, as Robb had taken to calling the boy, who spent much of his time in his grandmother’s lap. There were Tris and Qarl—Theon suspected one of them was the true father of the bastard growing in Asha’s belly—but they were no company at all. Most days, he would sneak off alone with Robb when Aalis refused to leave him alone.

There was a place none of them knew, a secret place. It was here, down by the tide pools, that Theon took Robb when war councils became too overwhelming for the King in the North.

“It’s such a bleak place,” Robb said, standing on the rocky outcropping facing towards the hidden cove. “I can’t imagine you living here as a child.”

“Some would say the North is bleak,” Theon responded. “There is color here, if you know where to look.” He grabbed Robb’s hand and pulled him along to the hole-filled rocks where fish and crawling animals thrived on these barren islands. Among a forest of anemones, a bright yellow octopus took flight as their footsteps created ripples across its puddle. “I used to come down here when I was young…to be alone.” He toed at the water with the edge of his boot and watched the octopus take cover under a rock. “I’m glad to see the fish have come back.”

“Come back?”

“One day, Maron and Rodrik followed me down here, wanted to see where I went every day. They beat me, like usual, called me ‘fish farmer,’ said they’d stop when I was strong enough to fight back and _make_ them stop. But I guess they got bored, because then they broke all the coral—you can see where they stomped on it—and tore out all the sea grass. I thought they’d ruined it.” He hadn’t thought about that in years. “ _Of course_ everything came back. That was a long time ago.”

“Theon…?”

“You know, I don’t remember ever being happy here. And yet…when your father took me away, I think I built up this romanticized idea of it. Told myself that this was where I really belonged. But I think I _could_ have been happy at Winterfell…if I wasn’t afraid for my life every waking second.”

“If it had been your choice,” Robb said, pulling Theon back from the tide pool. “I wish you’d been a ward. An honest ward, not a hostage. I love my father, but I hate what he did to you.”

Theon shrugged. “I’d rather it was your father than any other man who came into the great hall the day the castle fell. I remember him that day. He was the only one without _contempt_ on his face. Scary, mind you, and grim. But your father…your family…was never _unkind_ to me.” He hugged Robb close. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.”

“I’m sorry for Bran and Rickon. I’m sorry I allowed the Boltons to burn and capture Winterfell. I’m sorry I killed your men. I’m sorry, Robb. I’m sorry.”

“Shh. What’s done is done. I wish I could go back and do things differently. Would my father still be alive? Did my men have to die at the Twins? But I thank the Gods every day for bringing you back to me, so at least I get my second chance there.”

Theon sniffled and realized he’d been bawling like a child on Robb’s shoulder. And Robb just stood there, allowing it. Theon straightened and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I don’t know why I acted like that just now.”

“Asha’s been having mood swings too. Shall I call the maester to have you examined?”

Theon pushed him away playfully.

 

***

 

Catelyn accosted them the minute they returned. She had a scrap of paper in her hand, and Theon immediately knew it was important news.

“It’s Rickon,” she breathed. “They think they’ve found him.”

“Who?” Theon asked.

“Where?” Robb asked over him.

“Skagos.” Catelyn shook her head. “A red-haired boy who would be about Rickon’s age and a black direwolf they claim this boy has tamed. He’s being held by Stannis Baratheon at the moment. They want to know what’s to be done to verify the boy’s identity.”

Robb looked stricken. He was probably remembering, as Theon was, the disastrous meeting with Stannis in the Bay of Crabs. The would-be King had promised they’d meet against as enemies, but surely he wouldn’t hurt an innocent six-year-old boy. Then again, the Red Woman was said not to discriminate about who she fed to her fires. It was a disturbing thought.

“I’ll go,” Robb said.

Theon put a staying hand on his shoulder. “Stannis will kill you. You heard what the Red Woman said.”

“I’ll go,” Catelyn said.

“Mother—”

She shook her head to silence him. “Rickon needs someone he recognizes, and since it is too dangerous for you to go, I will go.”

“It will be dangerous for you too,” Theon pointed out.

“We’ll all go,” Robb said. “We’ll meet with Stannis somewhere neutral. The Wall. I’ll write Uncle Benjen and see if he will facilitate.”

Theon gnawed on his lip.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Your Uncle Benjen…he went out ranging beyond the Wall. His horse returned without him. He’s presumed…well, no body has been found yet.”

Robb stared at him. “What? When did this news arrive?”

“When I was at Winterfell.” He winced. “When I _took_ Winterfell.”

“And you didn’t see fit to tell me until just now?”

“I forgot?”

Robb scowled, and Theon was reminded again of how utterly he’d fucked things up. But he had forgotten! And then he’d been running and Benjen Stark’s disappearance had fled his mind entirely. He hadn’t remembered until Robb had mentioned the man’s name just now.

“I’ll write the Lord Commander, then,” Robb said with a frustrated sigh and a hint of grief at the loss of his uncle. “Joer Mormont, is it?”

“Actually…” Now Catelyn looked nervous. “Don’t be angry with me, Robb, but we’ve received some news from the Wall. I was waiting to tell you until…until our position was more solid.”

“Waiting how long?”

“…a few months.”

“ _Mother_? You too?”

“I didn’t think it was that important. And the note was rather long and rambling, talking about old nursery rhymes and—”

“What did it say?”

“About the Wall…there’s been a development.”


	3. Chapter 3

Robb dismounted his horse gracelessly and broke into a run when the familiar face came to greet his men. Jon had grown from a boy to a man since last they’d met and was threatening to overtake him in height. He had a few more scars, too, what looked like claws marks on his cheek. It appeared he’d seen his own share of battles as a man of the Night’s Watch.

As they embraced, Grey Wind and Ghost romped at being reunited, nipping playfully at each other. Both Sansa and Arya had lost their direwolves so he’d not had a chance to compare after his reunion with them, but he wanted to ask Jon if he’d been having strange dreams as well.

“You look good,” Jon said, looking immeasurably tired. “Stannis’s man hasn’t arrived with Rickon yet, but we expect them with a day or two.”

“Good.” It hadn’t occurred to Robb, but Jon could just as easily confirm Rickon’s identity. It might have saved them a journey into the heart of winter, if that was the only thing he’d come to do. “Tell me about these white walkers.”

Jon’s face grew serious. Well, _more_ serious. “They’re real. I’ve _seen_ them, Robb. A dead man tried to kill me. Tried to reach down my throat.” Perhaps unconsciously, his hand went for his neck. “The wildlings were willing to die by the thousands trying to get to the other side of the Wall. Trying to get away from _them_.” Sadness passed over his features. “We should have let them come.”

Robb knew when guilty weighed heavily on a man. He put a comforting hand on his brother’s shoulder. “They would have killed thousands of us,” he said. “Our smallfolk would not have stood a chance. You defended the realm.”

“From the wildlings, yes. But…in doing that, we just added ranks to our true enemy’s army.”

Robb cocked his head.

“Every wildling that dies beyond the Wall will come back as a white walker. And they’re marching this way with an entire army.”

The way he said that…there was no doubt in his voice. Robb had never known Jon to be given to fancy or exaggeration. If he said an army of dead men was headed this way, then he believed it. And Jon’s word was good enough for Robb.

He looked up at the eight-hundred-foot edifice. It was truly amazing what his ancestor had constructed, but it was, after all, just ice. “Can you hold them back?”

Jon looked straight at him, the way he always did when he was being truthful. “I don’t know.”

 

***

 

There were many empty rooms in Castle Black, the one thing they had in abundance. They didn’t need to double-up, except perhaps to conserve heat, but Robb requested two cots anyway.

“I’ll have Satin set them up,” Jon said, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “I’d heard you’d taken a wife. Did you…?”

“Asha is busy holding the Iron Islands in case her uncle should return,” Robb said.

“A steward then? Or a squire?”

There was no sense in tiptoeing around the subject. Jon might judge him harshly, but they were brothers and had never kept secrets from each other. “It’s Theon.”

Jon’s entire body stiffened.

Robb winced at the reaction. “I take it you received word of what happened at Winterfell?”

“How could I not? He’s the reason Rickon was found so far from home.” Jon sighed and ran a gloved hand through his hair. “I won’t question it. The wall is not a place for revenge but for blank slates. But he…you two share a room?”

“We all shared a room when we were young.”

“Yes, but then we grew up. Are you and Theon…?” His eyebrows scrunched as he considered his words, though it was clear what he wanted to ask. “Satin, my steward, used to lie with men when he worked at a brothel in the south. There’s…we don’t think less of him because of it.”

Robb looked up and down the corridor. They were alone, but he lowered his voice anyway. “If you’re asking whether I’ve lain with Theon Greyjoy, the answer is yes.” Why did he have to hide it from anyone? Because it was unmanly? Because it was ungodly? Because it was unkingly? Or because it was Theon? “I don’t expect you to understand it, but I’ve forgiven him.”

Jon looked like he wanted to say something else, but he just clamped his jaw closed and trained his eyes straight ahead. They continued walking in silence.

Their footsteps echoed off the flagstones, ancient and damp. Even the torches seemed to wither in their sconces in the oppressive dankness. Robb had reconsidered; of all the bleak places he’d been, this was by far the bleakest.

“I won’t judge you…about Theon,” Jon finally said. “I fell in love too.”

Robb glanced over in surprise. “But the Night’s—”

“I broke my vows for her. She was a wildling. I tried to hold onto my honor by telling myself I had to do it, to keep up the act, that they would have killed me and then I wouldn’t have made it back to the Wall with my report on their movements. But the truth was, I loved her. I threw my honor away for love.”

Robb swallowed thickly. “What happened to her? Was she in the raid on Castle Black?”

He nodded. “I found her body afterwards. Someone had put an arrow through her heart.”


	4. Chapter 4

Rickon arrived the next day. Robb thought it prudent not to bring Theon, so he and Catelyn went to meet the newcomers in the great hall with the Lord Commander presiding.

Imagine, Jon…Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch! It was a bit funny, but not at all surprising. Jon was a good man. He would have made a good Stark. He’d make an excellent Lord Commander.

From the minute he entered the great all, usually serious face set in a beaming grin, Robb knew the truth. Rickon truly was here. His youngest brother had returned. He recognized Shaggydog before he recognized the boy himself, though. He’d aged, grown taller and lost most of his baby fat. His red hair was nothing more than a tangled mess falling into his eyes, and the furs he wore looked to have been cobbled together by a madman.

The boy froze at the doorway upon seeing Robb. Stood there and stared. There was a feral quality in his blue eyes, like a cornered animal. “Robb?” His eyes shifted next to Catelyn. “Mama?”

Catelyn choked on a sob and stooped down, opening her arms. Rickon ran to her. She kissed him all over his face, ran her hands through his hair and over his shoulders, allowing herself to believe he was really there. “Oh, my boy, my baby.”

“I’m _not_ a baby,” Rickon protested.

“I reckon not,” a new voice said. “A baby would not have survived in the wild as long as this lad has.” There was a man at the door, hands clasped in front of him as he watched the reunion between mother and son. “Davos Seaworth,” he introduced himself.

“ _Ser_ Davos,” Jon corrected for him. Then, turning to the man with a slight bow, said, “Thank you for bringing my brother back to us.”

“Yes,” Robb echoed. “I know you serve Stannis, but if there is anything House Stark can give you as a token of our appreciation…”

Davos held up a hand to stay him. The fingers of his gloves didn’t fit quite right, somehow. “I need nothing, Your… I hope you don’t take offense, but Stannis Baratheon is the only King I serve, my lord.”

Robb bristled a little at the title, though he could respect the man’s loyalty. He nodded. “I thank you, ser.”

He tilted his head. “And in all fairness, you should be thanking the lady, too. I’m thinking she had more of a role to play in keeping the lad alive all this time.”

“Lady?”

“I’m not lady, beggin’ yer lordship’s forgiveness.” A woman entered behind Davos, a woman Robb had last seen in chains. The wildling woman who had first tried to rob and kill Bran…had helped the two youngest Starks survive in the Northern wilderness?

“Osha,” he said, finally remembering her name. “What happened? Where’s Bran?” His throat constricted, wondering why the other boy wasn’t with them.

Osha folded her arms over her chest. “Went north, beyond the Wall. Tried to talk sense into him, but these greenseers…” She scoffed. “It was the other little lordling convinced him to go. Following the three-eyed raven.”

She was talking like a madwoman.

“You let him go beyond the Wall…alone?”

“Not alone, no. He had the giant and the two lordlings, a girl and a boy. The boy had the sight, too.” She shrugged. “It’s not for me to question, and as I couldn’t convince them otherwise, so I took it upon m’self to watch our little lord here.” She nodded to Rickon.

“I…thank you,” Robb said hesitantly.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” Rickon piped up, and all eyes turned to the small boy still in his mother’s arms. “I saw it, in my dreams. You and Grey Wind lost your heads. And Mama’s neck was cut. She had big scratches on her face, kinda like Jon had now.”

Everyone stared.

“Usually my dreams come true, but I’m glad this one didn’t. Something must have changed.”

 

***

 

The Night’s Watchmen watched him, without malice, without interest, without recognition. He was just another of Robb Stark’s loyal men, and nobody questioned it. Once upon a different life, Theon could have been one of these dour men in black. They would have welcomed him if he’d run here after fleeing Winterfell. He was glad he hadn’t. Otherwise he wouldn’t have spent last night keeping warm in Robb’s bed. And it was bleeding cold up here. He’d needed a lot of warmth.

He agreed that his presence at the Stark reunion may prove detrimental, so he’d busied himself by wandering around Castle Black. He hoped the boy turned out to be Rickon. He needed to apologize.

He’d heard tales of the austerity of the place, but he’d never imagined something like this. It reminded him of what he’d seen when he’d been allowed into Moat Cailin to treat with the Ironborn: sick and starving men, plenty of weapons but not enough living hands to wield them. He’d even seen a body being taken to a pyre, as well-preserved in the Northern cold as in the marshlands of the Neck. Who would live and die to defend this godsforsaken place?

“Well, well, if it isn’t the mighty Prince of Winterfell himself.”

Theon looked up from watching the men spar in the courtyard below—they were like unarmed children swinging their fathers’ swords for the first time. A ratty-looking woman was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over her chest. He’d seen a fair share of wildling women about, but none of them had addressed him or even really noticed his presence.

He squinted against the dim light. For a second he thought he recognized that stick-thin frame in its voluminous skirts. “Osha?” Yes, that was her. He knew that special brand of contempt, similar yet also so different from everyone else’s. He’d last been seen her with Rickon, so that must mean this boy was indeed the youngest Stark.

She pushed off from the wall and sauntered towards him. “Don’t know _why_ you’re still alive. If it were me, I’d leave you hanging from a tree by your guts.” She shrugged. “You southerners are so soft.”

“Robb is not soft!”

She eyed him up and down. “Might be he’s as easily distracted by a nice, pretty cock as you are by a nice, pretty twat. That’s how we escaped, you know? While you were fucking that pretty whore in your room.”

Theon clenched his hands. If this woman hadn’t told Bran and Rickon to run, he never would have had to kill the miller’s boys. _You didn’t have to kill them anyway_ , a voice whispered. _Nobody_ made _you do any of it._ He forced his hands to unclench.

“I’ve changed,” he said at last. “I’m trying to make it right with Robb. I plan on making it right with Rickon and…” He gritted his teeth. “And you, if you’ll allow it.”

She laughed as she continued to walk towards him. “People don’t change. You say you want to make it right with me?” She held out a closed first then released it, showing an empty palm within. “Words are wind. Beyond the Wall, a man shows who is through actions, and you’ve already shown me what sort of man you are, Theon Greyjoy.”


	5. Chapter 5

“How long are we going to stay in this frozen bunghole?” Theon shivered against the cold and wrapped his furs tighter. He’d known it wasn’t to be a quick visit when Robb had rallied his men together.

“We need to stay a while yet,” Robb said seriously. “There’s an army marching south deadlier than the Lannisters or the Boltons combined.”

“You don’t _believe_ in this white walker nonsense, do you?”

Robb stared into the flames of the fire. “Stannis believes it. He’s moved all the forces he acquired from the Golden Company up North. He plans to fight with the Night’s Watch, and so do I.”

Theon sighed. In his opinion, they should strike and overwhelm the Boltons while they had the numbers, before winter got any worse. It wasn’t his decision, though. “I’m by your side wherever you go and however long it takes to be there, but could I get a time estimate? When are these white walkers going to make an appearance?”

“Jon says the rangers report dark shapes moving on the horizon. He estimates they’ll be here within the month, picking up troops as they go along. Men, women, children, even animals…they’ll be well over a hundred thousand strong. Probably closer to a million.”

“All long as the Wall holds, all we have to do is drop burning pitch on them from above.”

The fire popped, spreading embers across the hearth. “ _If_ the Wall holds.” Robb’s voice sounded hollow and not like his own at all. Like someone was speaking through him.

“Why wouldn’t it hold?”

Robb shook his head, as if waking from a reverie. “You’re probably right. The Wall has stood for over a thousand years, and it only grows stronger in winter.” He cast Theon a reassuring smile.

“Dead men,” Theon scoffed. “Don’t they know Robb Stark laughs in the face of death? Don’t they know you spit in the Stranger’s own face?”

“I’d prefer you not blaspheme on the verge of battle,” he laughed back. “I need every god I can get on my side.”

Theon stood and draped his furs over Robb’s shoulders, sharing the warmth. It was too cold for them to be naked together like they’d been on Pyke. Winter had only just begun and already he wished summer would return quickly. “You don’t need any gods on your side.” He kissed Robb’s cheek, let his hands slide under the many layers of clothes that separated them. “You have me.”

 

***

 

Catelyn was set to depart back to Pyke with Rickon, so Theon took his last opportunity to confront the boy. He found him wandering the courtyard with Shaggydog while the men sparred. The direwolf growled as Theon approached, and Rickon’s head shot up. His hair had been cut short and they’d somehow managed to wrestle him into civilized clothes, but his eyes were as dangerous and feral as any wildling’s.

“I wondered when you’d come,” he said, patting Shaggydog’s side. The wolf calmed. “You killed Mikken. Osha says you’re a bad man.”

“She’s right.”

Rickon accepted that with a nod.

“I want to apologize…for being a bad man.”

“Osha says words are wind.”

“She says that a lot, does she?”

Rickon cocked his head, as if trying to study Theon from a different angle. “I had dreams about you, too. You were somewhere dark and screaming. You forgot your name.””

Theon didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I’m glad you’re not a ghost,” Rickon went on, seemingly distracted by Shaggydog’s fur. “Even if you _are_ a bad man, I think maybe you’re the one that changed things.” He bunched his brow together, looking very much like Robb had at that age. “I had another dream last night.”

Theon’s spine tingled.

“Robb was dead, but he wasn’t in the ground. He had a big hole…here.” He put a hand over his chest. “His eyes weren’t the right color of blue.” He stood and pondered that for a minute. Then he lifted his head and cut Theon straight to the core with his eyes. “Maybe you can change that, too.”

 

***

 

Catelyn and Rickkon returned to Pyke, and the days that followed were a blur. Robb met with Stannis on several occasions, but always returned frustrated in the evenings afterwards. He didn’t speak of it, but Theon knew it must have something to do with the Red Woman. He’d heard plenty of rumors from the wildlings, who spoke with contempt for the witch who would dare to burn their king, much less an innocent babe. The stories chilled him deeper than the cold, and he wondered what fate would have awaited him if Robb had taken Stannis’s deal in the Bay of Crabs.

So far, he’d only had own run-in of his own with the woman. It was not an experience he wished to repeat.

He’d been out in the courtyard practicing archery, getting his stiff fingers used to shooting arrows in the cold. He’d thought he was alone. Then someone said, “Theon Greyjoy,” and he missed the target he’d been aiming at. For a split second, he panicked, his mind racing back to that day Maron and Rodrik had followed him down to the tide pool. When he turned to see Melisandre of Ashai slinking towards him in her red dress—no furs, as if the cold didn’t bother her a bit—panic turned to dull terror.

He went back to his practice, ignoring her.

But she was not one to be ignored. She slithered closer to stand right beside him. “Do you think your arrows will do any good against a dead man?”

He thought about whirling around and putting his arrow between her eyes.

She put her bare hands over his gloved ones, copying the way he held the bowstring taut. He jerked away, dropping his bow.

“The weapon we truly need is pulsing in your veins.”

“And the veins of a newborn child, too, I suppose? Say what you will about me. At least _I_ don’t murder babes still at their mother’s teat.”

“And yet you are a murderer all the same. I do what I do in the name of the Lord of Light. You do what you do to glorify your own name.” She took a step forward, smiling when he took a step back. “Or do you glorify Robb Stark’s name these days? Or nights, perhaps? Is his the name you scream in the throes of your worldly pleasure?”

He didn’t dare deny it, not least because the woman looked like she could see straight through him. He grunted, the way he did when he wished to let someone know they had failed in getting under his skin, even if they hadn’t, and bent down to retrieve his bow. “I serve Robb as my King.”

“And yet you will not serve the Lord of Light and His greater good.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “You are not the only one with King’s blood. Robb Stark will do just as well, perhaps better, since others are _willing_ to bend the knee to him.”

Was she threatening Robb? Did she dare? Panic forgotten, Theon pulled himself to his full height and took a step towards her. “If you touch Robb, I’ll throw you off the Wall for the white walkers.”

Her face remained neutral. “We’ll see how brave you are, Theon Greyjoy, when one million dead men are standing at the door…” Her eyes flicked to his bow. “And all you have are your mortal-made arrows.” She pulled her red hood up and left the way she’d come.

A few days later, the white walkers came.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle for the North, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're heading into the climatic conclusion. Though I admit to not being so good with the actiony stuff.

The baleful sound of a horn rose Theon from his sleep. Robb was already up and dressing, and Theon hurried to join him. “They need archers at the top,” Robb explained. “I’ll be on the ground, readying the second wave of men.”

Theon nodded in understanding. They wouldn’t be fighting side-by-side today—or tonight, rather, as the sun had been down for hours. Still, at least Robb wouldn’t be on the front lines. In fact, if Theon did his job properly, Robb wouldn’t have to see _any_ combat today.

So he told himself, fiddling with his bow as the lift brought him inexorably towards the top. The world shrank away under his feet. Theon prided himself on long-distance archery, though he’d somehow forgotten to factor that eight hundred feet _up_ felt a longer distance that eight hundred feet _over_. He was a bit dizzy and nauseated by the time the lift lurched to a stop.

Jon Snow greeted him with a solemn nod. Several dozen archers—some Night’s Watchmen, some others wildling men and women, the others Robb’s and Stannis’s men—were gathered along the edge. Theon took his place in their ranks and immediately saw why no one was talking.

Down below, the forest had become alive with movement, like a disturbed hornet’s nest. If he squinted, he could make out the individual dark shapes moving between the trees. As far at the eye could see, the land was a writhing mass of shuffling-gaited…creatures. Even from up here, it was clear that they weren’t human. Their movements were too jerky. Too…unnatural.

“Gods,” he breathed.

“Don’t look down there,” Jon said from behind. “Keep your eyes forward.”

Theon looked up, and that was when he saw the birds. Hundreds of them, thousands, beating the air with dead wings. There were crows and gulls and eagles, all of them vocal birds, and yet the lot of them made no noise at all. Their eyes were blue.

“Fire at will,” Jon commanded.

Theon nocked an arrow and let it fly at the nearest eagle. It made no noise as the arrow caught it in the wing and sent it hurtling towards the ground, still flapping mindlessly onwards.

“Gods,” he breathed again.

 

***

 

Feathers fell from the sky like black snow. Robb kept glancing up the Wall, though of course he couldn’t see what was going on.

“We should be out there,” the Greatjon muttered. “Not chopping trees like woodsmen.”

Robb paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. Despite the cold, he was dripping. Armor was not terribly conducive to cutting down trees, it seemed, but this was the task where Jon had insisted most men were needed. “Stannis has the frontline covered, but right now we’re the realm’s last line of defense. We need to hold our position.”

“So…what?” the old man said, hefting his axe. “We wait here for Stannis to fail?”

“We wait,” Robb said, “and hope that Stannis does _not_ fail.”

 

***

 

Theon shot down another bird. They had managed to claw several of the archers’ eyes out, but they were quickly becoming the lesser threat.

The white walkers had reached the Wall. The creatures that made up their numbers seemed to have lumbered straight out of Old Nan’s tales. At first Theon had thought it was an effect of the vertigo, but then the man beside him had cursed, “Fuckin’ hells, they have _giants_.”

The shapes towered over the others, dwarfing them. They threw themselves at the Wall, pounding with fists and hammers. They left great splotches of red against the white ice. These were not feeling creatures but puppets with a single design: Tear down the wall.

The smaller shapes went about their task just as mindlessly, swarming in masses up against the Wall, hauling themselves upwards with nothing but their hands and feet. They were beyond number, stretching out all along the Wall from sea to sea, if Theon had to guess. And that was when it struck him. Even with Robb’s men, even with Stannis’s men, they were beyond outnumbered.

“Ready the pitch!” Jon Snow commanded. Great vats of tar had been set up, enough to stop the first wave of dead men making their way upwards. At Castle Black, at least. There were still miles and miles of unprotected Wall on either side. That was then the second realization came. They had no chance of holding these creatures at bay.

“Greyjoy!” Jon grabbed Theon’s shoulders and spun him around. “I need you here with us. Do you understand?”

He nodded numbly.

“Good. I need to check on the rest of the men. Satin’s in charge while I’m gone. Listen to his orders, alright?”

Theon nodded again, and then Jon was gone.

A thin, womanish-looking lad called the men to set the pitch on fire. Theon guessed that was Satin—not a man he would have taken orders from normally, but the boy had a calmness to him that brought Theon back to the moment. Right, he didn’t have time to panic.

He notched a pitch-dipped arrow and held it out over a torch until it ignited. Then he leaned over the side and sent it flying at the nearest dead man’s head.

 

***

 

“Stannis is engaging the enemy on the ground,” Jon said, leaning in close to whisper updates in Robb’s ear. “They’re trying to hem them in from the sides, give them less options for scaling the Wall.”

“How’s it going?”

“Not well.”

Robb cursed.

“I’m going to call them back,” Jon said. “At this point they’re just adding more bodies to the enemy’s army.”

“Will Stannis listen?”

“I hope he will see reason. Right now we need men on _this_ side of the Wall. It’s only a matter of time until there’s a breach.”

Robb glanced upwards, hoping in vain to catch sight of Theon. He neither saw nor heard anything, but he could feel the trembling in the ice all around him.

“I left Satin in charge,” Jon said, placing a hand on Robb’s shoulder. “He’ll keep them going as long as they can, but he knows to fall back when the breach happens.”

“ _When_?”

Jon didn’t respond to that. “We’re abandoning Castle Black, when the time comes. The wood you and your men have been gathering…we’ll set that on fire. Construct another wall to keep them from advancing.”

They’d been working for hours, cutting trees, hauling trunks to set up this new wall. “Do you have enough timber to stretch that far?”

“For the time being.”

“We’ll give you more time.” Robb looked up again. “I’ll get my men ready to fight.”

 

***

 

They were close enough now to see the strange blue of their eyes—those that had eyes, at any rate. Some were no more than bits of flesh and sinew hanging off bone.

“That’s it!” someone called. “We’re out of pitch.”

Theon had run out of arrows some time ago. He let the bow slip from his fingers. He’d failed Robb again.

A hand grabbed his shoulder and he blinked as Jon’s steward gave him a concerned look. “There’s nothing more we can do here. The Lord Commander needs us with the ground forces.”

Theon let himself be led to the stairs carved into the ice. There was no time for the lift. As they began the mad, steep descent, Theon looked over his shoulder to see the first rotted hands reaching up and over the wall.

They were barely a hundred feet into the eight-hundred-foot race to the bottom when dead men began overtaking them, the corpses unheeding as they plummeted down the other side. They certainly had no fear of death to stop them. And they recovered quickly, staggering back to their feet as though the fall had been a minor misstep.

Satin drew his sword, and the men that had theirs followed suit. Theon gripped the hilt of his own sword as they plunged into the white walkers coming the other way up the stairs. It was difficult close-quarters fighting, and Theon found himself remembering staged version of this exact battle with Robb and Jon in the Broken Tower. He laughed hysterically at the image and swung with renewed vigor, taking off the head of a man who continued to fight anyway.

Some men fell. Others succumbed to the enemy. There were barely ten living men left as they jumped the last few stairs and began hacking their way to the front gate.

All over the courtyard, the living and the dead fought in skirmishes. Theon pushed past a woman with gray flesh, her stomach ripped open and leaking guts. If its eyes glowed, he swung out. “Out of the way, fuckers!” he cried. “You’re not keeping me from Robb.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle for the North, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little bit...weird here.

Robb fought astride his horse. His blade made quick work of the white walkers, but for every one he cut down, two more took its place. And then the one he’d cut down would get back to its feet.

“Pull back!” he called over the screaming, the metal on metal, the metal on bone. “To the timber line!”

Jon had not been lying. Thousands of trees had been cut, their trunks laid end to end parallel along the Wall. Would they ignite? How long could they keep such a wall burning? Where was Theon?

He saw Jon engaged with a dead woman holding a pike. The woman’s movements were slow and unthinking, but she was possessed of an inhuman strength. Her attacks were inexorable.

Robb spurred his horse forward and kicked out at the assailant, knocking her to the ground. “Go!” he screamed to Jon.

Jon gave him a dubious look.

“I’ll be right behind you. I have to find Theon.”

“ _He’ll_ be more likely to find _you_.”

“I’ll bring back your steward, too.” Robb turned his horse around and rode back into the thick of battle.

 

***

 

A child had its hands wrapped around Theon’s neck and was trying its hardest to strangle him. He shrugged the thing off with a repulsed grunt. The front gate was getting closer, but the white walkers were getting thicker. Some of them didn’t even have weapons, just clawing with blackened fingernails. He’d seen one man go down in such a manner, disappearing into a mob of unarmed enemies, screaming.

He learned quickly that only some of them still had blood left in them. Mostly his sword came away trailing bits of skin. The living owned most of the red staining the snow.

A horse came galloping through the gates with a rider, and Theon breathed a sigh of relief to see another sort of red—Robb’s hair, brilliant against the breaking dawn. He made straight for them, sword held high. “I’ve cleared a path,” he called. The four surviving men followed the horse out through the gates.

Theon was impressed that Satin had managed to be one of them, but the small man was deceptively good with his sword. Jon Snow took him into an embrace as they crossed the timber line.

Robb hugged Theon from behind and buried his face into the furs at the name of his neck. “I was afraid I’d lost you.”

“Not yet.”

They watched at the flames sizzling, popping, then dying out. The fire wasn’t catching. Men rushed back and forth to add wood, but it was a losing battle. Beyond, in the empty stretch of land they’d come from, the white walkers continued advancing.

“What now?” Theon asked.

Nobody answered.

“If we had catapults,” Robb suggested half-heartedly after several seconds, “we could launch fire right into their midst.”

“The catapults are…were on the top of the wall,” Jon answered.

“We managed to set some of them on fire that way,” Satin said, “but…”

“But it was useless,” Theon finished. “This whole thing was useless from the beginning, wasn’t it?”

Robb stood abruptly to his full height. “Don’t talk that way, Greyjoy. Since when have you been a defeatist?”

“Since we were defeated.”

“We _weren’t_ defeated. We _aren’t_ defeated.” He drew his sword, and every man and woman there lifted their heads to see what the ruckus was. “As long as there are still men to guard the realm, I will stand with them. Today, let there be no Starks or Baratheons, no Umbers or Karstarks.” He looked at Theon. “No Greyjoys. Only us, the defenders of the realm!”

The men cheered.

“Now,” Robb continued, though he continued to look at Theon, “put on your ‘armor’ and stand with me. If we cannot stop them here, then let us at least show them that they cannot have us!”

The rattling of metal filled the night as the men stood and drew their weapons.

The shapes of the white walkers loomed nearer. Robb stood to face them, and the men began to line up beside him, poised for this final battle. Theon stood to Robb’s right, Jon to his left. “Burn me,” he said, looking from one to the other. “I don’t want to come back.”

Silence fell, and only the dying crackling on the fire remained. Overhead, the stars were fading as the sky turned from orange to pink. Theon watched his breath condense in the air. He didn’t want to die, but if it was the fate of things, he was glad to be dying alongside Robb.

“Robb,” he said, so softly that he was sure Robb hadn’t heard him.

But then the redhead turned to him, locking on him with his eyes, and the world, everything, seemed to fall away. He was beautiful in the glow of the fire.

“I love you.”

He watched Robb’s eyes widen.

“I just thought you should know.”

“I know. I’ve known.” He smiled. “Still, it’s good to hear. I love you too.”

And then the fire was nothing more than glowing coals, and on the other side stood a line of dead horses bearing pale riders. Not dead men, but something else. Something…Other.

By Theon’s side, Robb tensed.

The horses began forward, their large eyes shining blue. The lead rider had a pike in his hand, while another held a crudely made bow and yet another bore a sword it had obviously taken off a Watchman. Their eyes were the same dead blue. There was something lurking behind those eyes, something calculating. They watched these defenders of the realm as if they were merely insects.

Theon shuddered.

No, that wasn’t him shuddering. It was the earth. The very ground beneath his feet. Robb felt it too, stumbling back as the vibrations became more intense. Several men voiced their confusion, and a few were even thrown off their feet.

“What in seven hells…?”

Even the pale riders looked uncertain, turning on their horses. As everyone looked on, the Wall shimmered. All eight hundred feet high and five hundred miles long became translucent in the daylight breaking over the horizon. Theon couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but he knew ice and he knew water and the difference between the two. The Wall had become a wave, a colossal tidal wave, frozen in place as it broke over the land. With a roaring sound like a hundred angry oceans, it began to fall.

It surged forward, that monstrous wave, sweeping away the white walkers as if they were bits of flotsam. If the dead men made any sound, it was lost under the deafening rush of water.

Robb was the first to come to his senses. He turned to his men. “Retreat!”

They didn’t need much more prompting than that. The wave rushed towards them, close on their heels. Theon knew from his early years on Pyke that you could no outrun a wave, not by foot, not by boat. Dagmer had once told him that if you could see the tide coming in, you were already too late to outrun it. _I hadn’t expected to drown today_ , he thought, abusrudly. He could hear the rush of blood in his ears, synching with the roar of the water.

“What is that?” Robb asked, and Theon realized it wasn’t his blood at all, but something else. Something rhythmic and steady. Something overhead.

He looked up to see three birds coming in from the east. No, not birds. The sun shone through their great, leathery wings. They were too big to be birds. They were too big to be anything. But then again, he’d been attacked by giants and corpses today. They might well be dragons.

The lead creature, larger than the others and gleaming black in the daylight, opened its mouth and spewed forth a blast of fire. The other two followed. The trees that had refused to catch fire now erupted into flames.

Dragon fire.

Theon knew that was what he was looking at the moment he saw it. The entire line of trees burst into bright orange flames, and a wall of living fire rose up. The pale riders were caught between this new wall and the approaching wave. The shape of them disappeared as they raised their weapons, now impotent in their hands. Theon could hear them howling on the other side.

“Burn, fuckers,” he whispered.

Robb laughed. The hysterical sort of laugh Theon had given earlier, one that spoke of disbelief, overwhelm, and overwhelming relief. He dropped his sword and turned to give Jon a hug. “I have no bloody idea what just happened,” he said, “but there must be some God on our side.”

“Must be,” Jon agreed.

Robb released him and turned to Theon. “Might be your Drowned God was on our side after all.” He held his arms out to embrace him, but then his entire body jolted forwards.

Theon stood, unable to do anything as Robb fell, a white walker’s arrow through his chest.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've officially lost the right to call this a fix-it fic.

“No.” Theon fell to his knees next to Robb. “No, no, no.” He cradled the red head in his lap.

Robb looked up at him, not understanding what had happened. He tried to take a breath but wheezed instead. A few specks of blood flew from his mouth and clung to his lips. And then the life left those blue eyes as his body went limp in Theon’s grip.

“No,” Theon repeated.

Jon was by his side, trying to get in. Rationally Theon knew he should let the man hold his brother’s body, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go. He clung to Robb, intent that nobody should pry them apart. For all the good it did. Robb was already too far away to reach.

The flames continued to roar and the water continued to surge and Jon was saying something, but Theon couldn’t hear any of it. He only saw the fire glinting back from Robb’s unseeing eyes, and he knew there was still a way to reach Robb yet.

He stood and rolled the body over. Before Jon could ask what he was doing, he yanked the arrow free and lifted Robb up into his arms. There had been a time when he could easily lift the boy off his feet, but now that Robb was taller than him and bigger, it was more difficult. Still, he clutched him tightly, clinging to the quickly dissipating warmth.

Jon stood staring at him questioningly.

“Where’s the Red Woman?” Theon asked.

 

***

 

Melisandre of Ashai didn’t look surprised to see him. More like she’d known he’d come. She turned from Stannis’s celebrating men, her eyes flickering over Robb’s body as Theon laid him at her feet. “Bring him back.”

“What makes you think that’s within my power?”

He could have throttled her. “Because if your Lord of Light is really as powerful as you say he is, he can do more than just kill innocent babes. He can bring a King back from the dead.” He held out his hands, wrists up, to show her the blue veins under his skin. “Use my blood.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Now you offer this?”

“Robb’s the only one I’d ever offer it for. Now do it.”

She put a hand on his wrist. Bare skin brushed against bare skin. She was burning hot. “The Lord of Light _may_ be able to do this, but He does not want your blood spilled on the ground. R’hllor is a God of Fire and Light, and he takes his offerings this way.”

Theon looked to the dragon fire, still burning strong. “I don’t care how he takes his offerings. Just do it.”

She nodded. “You will need to be bound.”

“No I won’t. I’ll take it.”

“You say that now. But when the fire starts burning your flesh away…then you might change your mind, and this is not something you can back away from.”

He grunted in disgust. “Fine. I don’t care. Do what needs to be done.”

“You understand, then? You’re giving your life to the Lord of Light.”

Theon shook his head. “No. I’m giving my life to Robb Stark.”

He allowed her to bind his feet and wrists with rope, though he would gladly throw himself onto the pyre of his own will. He was glad of it, though, when she took the torch to his furs. The fire ate through his clothes quickly, and when it reached his skin, he did scream. It hurt worse than anything he could have imagined. Not like burning at all, but like someone was peeling back his skin in large swaths to find out what was underneath. He writhed, but it was everywhere, absolutely every inch of him. His flesh became black and brittle as paper, and his blood boiled. And all the while he screamed.

 

***

 

Robb woke up somewhere warm and bright. He opened his eyes, sat up, and looked around. He was in a bright, white void, the sky and ground indistinguishable from each other and stretching forever in every possible direction. There was nothing, it seemed, but a weirwood tree, its roots disappearing beneath the nondescript ground. Robb stood before it and studied its face. He knew that face.

“Bran?” He checked again. Yes, the face carved into the tree, with its weeping eyes and mouth opened in a silent scream was his younger brother. He reached out to touch the tree’s smooth, white bark, but then thought better. “Am I dead?”

“Not exactly,” Bran’s voice answered as the red leaves overhead rustled. The face did not move.

“Is this a dream?”

“Not exactly that, either.”

“Where am I? What is this?”

“It’s the in-between. I’m holding you here, for the moment.”

“You? You’re holding me? How?”

“I can do lots of stuff now.”

Robb looked the tree up and down. “That was you, wasn’t it? With the Wall?”

The tree’s leaves shook.

“Bran…what’s going on?”

“Sorry, Robb, I don’t have a lot of time. Someone’s trying to bring you back from the other side. I really just brought you here to say goodbye.”

“Why?” Robb took a step forward. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere. Though it might be a while until _you_ get to see _me_ again. No, I brought you here to say goodbye to someone else.”

Robb stared uncomprehendingly up into the branches until the clearing of a throat brought his attention back down. Theon stepped out from behind the weirwood, a guilty and sheepish-looking smile on his face.

Robb took a step forward. “Theon…? You’re not…?”

He gave a helpless shrug. “I guess it worked. Or it will work, once we’re done here. Good thing, otherwise I would have come back and haunted that Red Bitch for the rest of her life.” He chuckled, and his smile grew into that familiar cocky one Robb knew so well. “So…this is goodbye, Stark.”

Robb ran forward and grabbed Theon in his arms. Wherever they were, whatever this place was, they were both solid. He could dig his hands into Theon’s shoulders and feel him there. “No, I’m not leaving you. I won’t let you go. I already lost you once. But you came back to me. You came back. So if you think I’m just going to let you go like last time…”

Theon ran a soothing hand over the back of his head, but his self-satisfied smile said he’d already made up his mind.

“You _always_ do stupid things without thinking them through,” Robb protested, though perhaps that was a bit hypocritical on his part.

“That’s not true. I think about them a lot. I just tend to do them anyway.”

Robb didn’t hold back the tears that came, then. “Don’t leave me.”

He felt warm lips on his forehead. “I’m sorry, Robb.”

“I love you, Theon.”

“I love you too.”

It felt like a waking from a dream, a falling dream. One minute he was standing with his arms around Theon, and the next he was jerked backwards, falling back into his body. He jolted awake, his body in terrible pain. His eyes flew open. Familiar faces swam into focus: Jon, the Red Woman, Stannis. He drew in a ragged breath that burned his lungs.

“Lord of Light be blessed,” Melisandre breathed in awe.

Jon fell to his knees and hugged him tight. “You were gone, Robb. You were _gone_. But Theon, he…”

“He left,” Robb said, feeling hollowed out, empty. “He left me.”


	9. Epilogue

“Father!”

“Tilda, my dear. Look how you’ve grown. How old are you now?”

“I’m seven, Father.”

Asha watched her husband lift her daughter into the air and swing her around. Anyone who called him Lord Stoneheart had never seen him with the children, even those who were not, in a blood-and-flesh sense, his.

Robb set the girl down and stood to greet Asha, his stern mask falling back into place. “How was your journey?”

She shrugged. “Better than last year. The ice is thinner. The snow is thawing.” She stretched, popping her joints. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been warm last. “Spring is coming.”

Robb nodded.

“We still plan to send men as soon as the last of the snow melts,” she went on. “You know, to help you rebuild Winterfell properly.” She couldn’t imagine living in this drafty old castle for the past seven years.

For two years in a row, she hadn’t been able to visit at all, the snows piling up almost over the battlements. The ships had been frozen in the harbor. Tilda had not been happy, but it wasn’t worth risking their lives. It was odd, but during those two years, Asha had worried about Robb. Actually worried about him. Especially since it was too cold for ravens to fly. He’d never been the same since her brother’s death, becoming reclusive. There were those who whispered that Sansa Stark was the true Lord of Winterfell, doing all the business her brother refused to do. Asha could believe it.

“How is Theon?” she asked.

“He’s well,” Robb answered. “He came down with a fever earlier this year and has been a bit sickly since. The maester said he might be deaf in one ear. Aalis was duly upset, but I told her that Bran had lost the use of his legs and that didn’t stop him from making the Frozen Sea.”

Ah yes, the Frozen Sea. Was that what they were calling it now? Regardless, when the thaws came, it would make for easier travel between Pyke and Winterfell. She wondered how many bodies would come with the thaws. Perhaps it would be better to stay frozen forever.

“Anyway, Sansa and Jeyne have been babying him ever since.” Robb smiled fondly. Another child that was not his, yet he’d come to consider his own. Asha suspected he’d name the boy heir of Winterfell if he could.

They’d had trouble conceiving, themselves. Asha blamed the winter. Many children were born blue and unmoving in the desperate cold of a long winter. Robb blamed himself.

 _Maybe I didn’t come back right_ , he’d written after their second child was stillborn. _Tilda is a fine girl, and growing strong, so I know the fault does not lie with you. Get pregnant again by your “salt husband.” I will not object._

 _And what if_ I _object?_ Asha wrote back. She would be damned if she didn’t have a legitimate child before the Dragon Bitch, the one who called had her lord husband “rebel” and “usurper” before quickly being put in her place. She was determined to give her lord husband a child with Tully-red hair and Greyjoy-blue eyes. It wasn’t a desire to _please_ him, so much. Never that. But it bothered her when people called him Lord Stoneheart, the Unfeeling, the King of Ice in the North. Robb was not a man of ice. A child may thaw him to the people, though.

“Tilda,” she called, and the girl squirmed reluctantly out of her father’s lap, “why don’t you go find Theon? We’ll see you at dinner.”

She nodded, her dark Greyjoy curls bouncing. She bounded from the room, humming a sea shanty, the words of which no seven-year-old should know. When she was gone, she took all the light and warmth with her.

Robb sat on his throne, hands on the armrests, eyes nowhere in particular. Though he was far from an old man, there were strands of white in his hair.

“She looks well.”

“She is well.”

“That is good to hear.”

They remained in silence for some time.

After a while, Robb stood with a weary sigh. Asha swore she heard the creaking of his young bones. “Walk with me.”

She nodded.

They walked through the ruins of Winterfell. The smell of charcoal had never quite dissipated, even after all these years, and black smudges remained on a few of the walls yet. It was not the bastion of the North it had once been and these days hardly staffed enough servants to keep the day-to-day chores going. Winter Town was busy, though, full of smallfolk who could not make the journey to any of the neighboring strongholds. She’d seen them as she’d ridden in, dirt-faced peasants crouched around fires. The Wolfswood had lost large swatches of trees to the winter’s kindling.

Robb took her through the courtyard, allowing her to catch a glimpse of the heart tree with its splotch of red against the snow. The leaves rustled, though it was a rare windless day. She shuddered to herself and followed her husband as he led her through an arching entranceway.

She stopped at the threshold. “Is it allowed?”

Robb looked over his shoulder. “I allow it. You may not have taken the Stark name, but you are my wife, and as such, you are allowed into our family crypts.” He held a torch aloft, inviting her to join him inside its small circle of light. “You’ve never been to visit him.”

She’d seen far worse than a few tombs, so she went to join him, shrugging off the chill that went deeper than her bones.

Their footsteps unconsciously matched each other as they descended the stairs. This part of the castle had been left untouched in the Bolton occupation, the foundations still holding Winterfell up. Built on the bodies of hundreds of generations of Starks, going back further than even the Greyjoy line.

“How did you convince your mother to bury him here?” she wondered aloud.

“I didn’t.” Robb’s face showed no sign of emotion. “I _told_ her I was laying him to rest here. He belongs here.”

More than he belonged on Pyke, Asha admitted, though she wished Alannys had been able to pay her respects before she’d gone to join her son, five years ago now. Where her brother’s bone lay made no difference to Asha. Many an Ironborn was buried at sea, their bodies left without a final resting place. In the end, the best marker left behind was a man’s deeds.

It was important to Robb, though. She guessed he probably spent an inordinate amount of time down here, with his father, his lost lover, and all his ancestors reaching back to before remembrance.

They came to an alcove that looked like any of the others, but when Robb held his torch up, Asha could see the vague resemblance of her brother’s face on the statue. She wondered how many of the other statues were smiling. Probably none.

Robb stepped forward and ran his hand along the statue’s face, as if it were made of warm flesh and not cold stone. “When I first received news that he’d betrayed me, I thought I’d never forgive myself. For letting him go, for giving him the opportunity to kill my brothers, for trusting him…” He trailed off into silence.

Asha came up behind him.

Upon feeling her presence, he went on. “But then, for some reason I still don’t fully understand, he came back to me. Just…walked into my camp, like nothing had happened. I was so…angry. I was going to execute him. I _was_. But…I couldn’t bring myself to.”

He turned to look at her. His eyes were not as vibrant as they had once been, dull, almost gray.

“You would have called me weak, but I think it was that act of selfish mercy that saved me.”

She didn’t answer. She appreciated his mercy and the year and a half it had bought her brother’s life—probably his happiest—but she had to agree. Anyone who double-crossed _her_ would have received an axe to the head, not a spot beside her in her bed. She didn’t begrudge him his decision. She just didn’t understand it.

“I feel like I should apologize to him.” Robb went back to studying the statue. “I’ve never told anyone that. I don’t think they’d understand. Nobody…nobody _loved_ him like I did. Like I _do_.” His hands were trembling as he reached out to grasp something that could not be grasped. “I never put much stock in the Gods. I went through the motions, both in the weirdwood and the sept. But then…that day…and Bran…I saw…”

He was becoming incoherent, working himself up. Asha placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him.

He came back to himself with a deep, shuddering breath. “I know I’ll get to see him again one day,” he finished. “I don’t know when or where or how. But I will. _We_ will.” A ghost of a smile appeared on his face. “And on that day, maybe we can start again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who left comments, kudos, etc. Everyone's been so supportive and great. I'd love to hear what you all thought: What worked? What didn't? What could use improvement in future writings?
> 
> And thanks again for reading. It's nice to know I'm not just throwing words into a void, and I hope you enjoyed.


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